Addus Homecare Corp. (NASDAQ: ADUS) is seeing constrictions on growth start to ease in its hospice business.

Many of those headwinds were associated with lingering effects of the pandemic. Like many hospice providers, Addus has faced COVID-19 challenges that include reduced patient volumes and shorter length of stays. Now, the company’s hospice rebound is starting to accelerate, CEO Dirk Allison said during the Bank of America Securities Health Care Conference.

“There have been some near-term headwinds. During COVID, there were a lot of excess deaths for that population segment that would be eligible for hospice and would have been receiving hospice benefits. I think that that’s largely subsided,” Allison said. “And if you look at just the admission volume, you’re starting to see that really pick up. We’ve had nice sequential growth on admissions.”

Addus’ roughly 33,000 employees provide hospice, home health and private duty nursing services across more than 200 locations in 22 states.

Addus’ hospice admissions reached 3,472 patients during the first quarter of the year, up from 3,324 in Q1 2023. The company’s average daily hospice census likewise grew to 3,359 from 3,195 year over year.

The company also saw improvement in length of stay, which rose to 89.6 days in Q1, up from 87.7 in the prior year’s period.

The company saw 11.6% year-over-year revenue growth in Q1, reaching $280.7 million in net service revenue. The company’s hospice segment, which represents about 20% of the business, earned nearly $56 million in the first quarter. Hospice revenue per day was up 3.7% from the prior year’s quarter.

Another factor that reduced admissions during the pandemic was the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) temporary waiver of the requirement of a three-day hospitalization before a patient becomes eligible for a skilled nursing facility. Many of those patients may have been referred to hospice instead in the absence of that waiver, which has since expired, according to Allison.

“We’ve seen from a length of stay standpoint our skilled businesses, that length of stay is starting to improve after the elimination of that waiver,” Allison said. “So I don’t think there’s anything structurally different with hospice long term. It’s just kind of fighting through some near-term headwinds that are starting to abate.”